It also can be heartbreaking, and nobody knows that better than the Mercyhurst hockey team.

The Lakers were on the wrong end of that situation Friday night, as Canisius' seldom-used defenseman Stephen Farrell scored at 13 minutes, 30 seconds of double overtime to lift the Golden Griffins to a 5-4 victory over Mercyhurst in an Atlantic Hockey Tournament semifinal.

The loss gave the regular-season champion Lakers -- who finished 21-13-7 -- another failure in their bid for a seventh NCAA Tournament appearance. Their last trip to the NCAA's came in 2005.

"I would like to congratulate Canisius, they are the defending champs," said Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin. "It was one of those tough nights where I thought we played pretty good. When you get deep into overtime like that, it is a bounce here or there."

A big story is that Farrell only played in six games this entire season before becoming the hero for Canisius with his first point of the season.

Farrell scored the winner when his shot from the right point sailed past Lakers goaltender Jimmy Sarjeant after deflecting off a Mercyhurst defenseman to send the Griffs to the conference final for the second straight season. The goal also ended the longest-ever AHA semifinal at 93:30 and the second-longest Atlantic playoff game ever.

"I came off of the bench and we had been trying to spread the offensive zone," Farrell said. "I saw Logan (Roe) get the puck and took a quick look at the net. He slid it over, and I was just trying to get it past the first guy. I saw we had two guys going to the net, and I guess I halfway got the job done. It went off of him into the net."

In the third period, the Lakers appeared to be in trouble when Canisius' Mitch McCrank gave the Griffs a 4-3 lead when he darted in and chipped a rebound from a few inches over the goal line at 6:31.

But Mercyhurst's Daniel O'Donoghue tied the game just less than 5 minutes later when he took Matt Zay's pass from behind the Canisius net and banged it past Tony Capobianco. It was the senior's eighth point in his past four games.

Then the real drama started before Farrell ended it.

Alec Shields had two goals for the Lakers, while Nick Jones added one for Mercyhurst, which outshot Canisius 62-47. Sarjeant, who along with Jones was named to the Atlantic Hockey first team earlier in the week, recorded 42 saves.

Ralph Cuddemi continued to be a Mercyhurst killer with two goals. He scored two against the Lakers in last season's conference championship game.

Capobianco finished with 58 saves.

"It is pretty frustrating when you win a regular-season championship and lose in the semifinals," Shields said. "It is about winning in the playoffs. It is tough."